In a movement too quick to follow, the Alpha seized her around the waist and pulled her across his lap. He was so much larger than her that her whole body fit across his thighs, with only her forearms and the lower part of her legs left dangling. She struggled against him but the circle of his arm might as well have been made of iron.

“I am going to spank you,” he informed her as if discussing something as commonplace as the weather. “I do not expect you to enjoy the pain, little Beta, but the more you resist then the more discipline you will receive.”

I don’t expect you to enjoy the pain.

He couldn’t mean it, she thought frantically. Is this what got the Alphas in the Astropolis to blow their loads…physical abuse? She had expected a bruising rut from an oversized Alpha, and a little pain was to must accompany that, but this was something else entirely.

Panicked, Ianthe squeezed her thighs together and pushed hard against the arm at her waist. The steel vise of his grip did not shift so much as an inch.

“You’re about the size of an Omega, perhaps you have some small bit of their natural instincts as well.” He stroked her flank with the back of one hand. She tried and failed to suppress a shiver. “Regardless, let’s pretend, shall we? That’s what this is all about, after all.”

The first strike on her bare ass was more shocking than it was painful. She had never been hit, even as a child, so the surprise of being struck was enough to make her jump. She cried out at the next swat which was delivered with considerably more force. Her legs flailed, trying to find purchase on the floor. He slapped each thigh punishingly hard, enough that she was sure it would leave a mark, until she stilled.

His chest pressed hard against her back, pinning her to his thighs with just the weight of his body. She felt the stiff length of his erection press painfully into the soft flesh of her belly.

Her last coherent thought was that no one had ever spanked her before, not even when she’d drawn on the floor of their apartment with a neon pencil as a child. She had expected sex, even to feel humiliated, but nothing like this.

The blows rained down, sharp and unrelenting. The pain mixed with fear and adrenaline pushing her to the edges of reason. She had to force herself to think through the onslaught. Emotional highs and lows upset the delicate balance achieved with the heat suppressants. If she were to lose control of herself, even in the smallest way, her secret would be revealed.

Ianthe cried out with each crack of his hand against her skin. She begged him to stop, choking out the words through her tears. If he heard her, the Alpha took no notice. Alternating sides, he covered every inch of her backside with slapping shocks in a tempo that never faltered even a beat.

He bent again to whisper in her ear, lips moving against the delicate shell, even as his hand never ceased its punishing rhythm. “You want this and just don’t know it yet, don’t you Omega.”

His words coursed through her with a roar of shock and fear. But his voice remained calm and the rhythm unhurried. She realized that this was part of the fantasy, the playacting, that he wanted to pretend that he dominated an Omega female and not some generic Beta.

She prayed again to the all-seeing gods that he would not discover the truth.

Then he was hitting her harder. She could no longer feel the individual blows because fire consumed the whole of her backside, from the aching skin under his hand to the molten center between her clenched thighs.

She was sobbing, without inhibition or restraint, tears and snot soaking the cushion against her face. No longer able to struggle against him, Ianthe focused all of her attention on trying to still her mind.

But that only made it harder not to focus on the aching flesh at her center that seemed to clench in time with each strike of his palm. She didn’t understand the sick sensation that descended over her — the urge that made her want to thrust herself back to meet his blows.

His hand eventually slowed, the severity of the spanking morphing into something softer. He rubbed her burning skin, over the swell of her buttocks and down her thighs, just hard enough that the stoked fire could not completely abate.

Her tears slowed until she took only small, hiccuping breaths.

“That was very good. I think you deserve a reward, little one.”

His palm rotated in slow circles on her back but inched down towards the curve of her ass. His touch grew light as a feather as he barely skimmed the aching spot between her thighs. The burning sensation of pain altered into pleasure.

She moaned when one thick finger pushed inside her.

“What’s this, then?”

He paused for a long moment as she wriggled to draw him closer. He stubbornly refused to move, forcing her to respond.

“I d-don’t kn-know…sir,” she said on a stuttering breath, overwhelmed by desire and shame.

“How very wet you are.” His stroking fingers lifted away, and she had to bite her tongue to keep from begging for more. “They can probably smell you all the way downstairs. It’s a rare Beta that can soak for me like this.”

She sobbed at that, unable to respond. Shame and desire swirled together into an irresistible cocktail. What was he doing to her?

He gripped her chin hard between his thumb and index finger, wrenching her head back in a painful contortion until their noses nearly touched. “Do you know what kind of girl gets wet when a man spanks her bare ass?”

“A b-bad girl, sir.”

“Not just a bad girl.” He caught her lower lip between his teeth and bit down hard until she tasted the copper tang of blood. He pulled away enough to whisper against her mouth. “A slut.”

That word was enough to snap her out of the haze of want and receding pain. “No!”

His palm cracked across the tender skin behind her thigh and she screeched.

“Say it, girl.” His hand stroked down her back and over the curve of one hip, lightly teasing. “Say what you are and I will reward you, little one.”

She didn’t like the endearments. Somehow, although she was naked and laying across his lap, that made this all seem so much more intimate.

A deep ache was building deep in her belly. Her body shifted, unconsciously trying to bring his hand closer to where she needed it, but he held her immobile.

“A slut.” She cried as she said it, both ashamed and aroused. “I’m a slut, sir!”

“Such a good girl.”

Fingers from one hand plunged between her slick folds while the other hand found the little bead of flesh just above her opening and flicked it sharply.

She pushed back against his hand, her heels sliding along the floor. Her legs spread wide to allow him better access. In that moment, she felt no shame at the wanton display. Her hips moved frantically and without rhythm. She was completely overcome and unable to think about anything except how much she needed relief.

His fingers pumped in and out of her, matching speed with the punishing strokes that his palm had delivered on her skin only minutes before.

The bulge of his length speared into her stomach, even through the layers of clothing that he still wore. He seemed impossibly large and she could only imagine the size of the knot that would make him grow even bigger inside her. The thought should have scared her, but that wasn’t how her body responded. She rocked against him, her own fervor rising as his flesh responded. Her body could acknowledge what her mind would not, that she wanted to be held down and filled by an Alpha’s knot, regardless of the consequences. Just the thought of it made the muscles of her inner walls clench and spasm around his fingers.

The orgasm hit her unexpectedly and hard enough that she nearly passed out. She arched against him, unconcerned that this man was a hated Alpha, as she screamed her release. He reacted to her writhing movements, matching the plunge in and out of his fingers with thrusts of his hips. He made a low growl in the back of his throat which only sent her flying higher into ecstasy.

Tremors racked her body, even as his fingers slipped out of her to rub gentle circles on her skin. The room spun lazily around her as she came back to herself.

The Alpha shifted and his arms came around her, lifting her limp body until he held her curled in his embrace like a child. She began to shiver, teeth chattering, but not from the cold.

He picked up the suit jacket that had been laid over the back of the couch and wrapped it around her body, still stroking bits of exposed skin as if she were a lap kitten in need of petting.

She took a moment to realize that he was not making any further demands of her. He hadn’t so much as moved to expose what felt like an impressive appendage from the confines of his pants. As she slowly came down from the high of orgasm, he seemed content simply to hold her.

What was this?

When she dared to look up, shadowed eyes watched her.

“Can you stand?”

She hesitated only a moment before nodding. “Yes, sir.”

He stood and placed her on her feet. His movements were perfunctory, but he held her upright for a moment until she could stand unaided. The sheer size of his form was impossible to ignore, standing this close. Even in heels, the top of her head barely rose to the middle of his chest.

Ianthe closed her eyes, feeling momentarily faint. None of this seemed real. She almost believed that she would open her eyes to find herself standing back in her small bedroom, all of this a fever dream. But when she opened her eyes again, he was still standing there and holding a white cotton robe in his hands. He removed the suit jacket that still hung like a blanket over her shoulder and draped the robe on her trembling body.

She still felt a keening sense of loss as his hands fell away. He crossed to the other side of the room, shrugging back into his wrinkled jacket.

“Take a hot bath when you get home,” he said, voice distant as if his mind was already on more important things. “That will help with the soreness.”

She didn’t bother to explain how much he was showing his privilege. She hadn’t laid eyes on a bathtub in years. And the shower apparatus in her apartment had to be filled with water heated on the stove so it barely reached temperatures higher than lukewarm.

“Is that it? Are we done?” She asked finally as he did up his cufflinks. “Sir.”

“For you.” He reached into an inner pocket and pulled out a credit chit, setting it on a nearby end table. “Were you expecting something else?”

“I just thought you were paying for…” her voice trailed off.

“Sex?” His smile was faintly mocking and also somehow beautiful at the same time. “I paid you for subservience, that’s all. It’s nothing personal, sweetheart, but I don’t fuck Betas.”

Ianthe fought off a spurt of completely inappropriate indignation at the last bit. It made no sense to get offended, she should be happy to get away this easily. “Oh.”

He slowly crossed the room towards her, stopping when barely a breath separated their bodies. She tried her best to avoid his gaze, but he refused to speak until her overly wide eyes rose to meet his.

“Do not confuse this for something it is not.” The back of his hand stroked down her cheek, so lightly that she could have imagined it. “I paid for submission and you were flawless, little Beta.”

He was already at the door before she could gather her thoughts enough to speak.

“Will we do this again?” The words spilled from her lips before she could stop them, full of a longing that she did not understand.

He turned back slightly, his face in profile, and raised a jet-black eyebrow. “Would you like that?”

She didn’t hesitate, surprising even herself. “Yes.”

The devastating smile returned, weakening her knees.

“I suppose anything is possible.”

It was only as the door closed behind him that Ianthe realized that she didn’t even know his name.